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IMLS Completed Review Report •.�ae'j INSTITUTE of »� •• psi MuseumandL'brary •`"• SERVICES LG -07 -14 -0067 City of Santa Ana NLG- Statement of Need This project is very creative. It will create a partnership with an established nonprofit (Historypin) to engage the new immigrant community with technology and civic engagement. During the current policy debate climate, this project will provide a positive opportunity to engage the community in meaningful work but it will also position the library as a leader in civic engagement. I am especially impressed by their plan to include national participants in this project Queens, New Mexico, West Hartford, Kudos! Shows that they've done their homework and that they will leverage this project idea in ways that will benefit local public library based community programming, with strong potential to serve as a national model for other libraries (and community based organizations). This is a demonstration project with a technology, community building twist. NLG - Project Design As stated in the previous section, the project design is very well thought out. I especially like the fact that they have stated very specific goals and included several partnerships with libraries that have well developed immigrant programming in place. The idea of a jump kit (a new version of the tool kit ?) is good. I do have some concerns re: the scope of the project. The coordination and communication challenges across the country may pose some challenges for collecting meaningful data (but that's what demonstration projects are all about, right ?). NLG - Impact The strategy for measuring the impact of the project is based on the production and quality of the products (Jump Kit, use of digital tools, etc). There is also an element for measuring local participation. Any thoughts on measuring the impact on the library operations? Library staff? NLG - Project Resources: Personnel, Time, Budget There are a lot of moving parts to this project. Given the national scope (with multiple areas of local focus) it will be a challenge to coordinate all of the activities and complete the major goals. Santa Ana's operating budget looks small when compared to the amount of IMLS and "cost- share" funding needed to support the project. So, I would need to know more about how the actual project might affect the day to day operations of the Santa Ana Public Library. NLG - Communications Plan Social media outlets will be used throughout the project. Each participant will be expected to exploit communications using local media channels. Major partner - Historypin - will also use its media channels to inform their community about the project. They mention an advisory panel, but there the members are not named. MOst of the communications strategy is about promoting the project - which is fine. I'm not sure how they will actually communicate with the people that they want to recruit or the participants once they are on board. Also, how will the communication strategy be evaluated? Because of the national scope, it would be good to capture what works, didn't work for replication in the future. NLG - Sustainability I look at this project as an "event ". Events typically don't need to be sustained but should be looked at as experiments from which larger lessons can be learned and applied to the goals of the organization. So, in that case, I would want to know more about how the lessons learned will be applied to the operations and programs for each of the participants. Total Score: 5 Additional Comments: Creative, bold and timely! Scope could be a challenge. But, overall a solid demonstration project. 20B -14